Erwin Sick

Erwin Sick (born November 3, 1909 in Heilbronn ; † December 3, 1988 ) was a German inventor and entrepreneur.

life and career

Erwin Sick began his professional career in 1924 with an apprenticeship as an optician and then attended the technical college for precision mechanics and optics in Göttingen . In 1932 he got a job at Siemens & Halske , where he initially worked in the computing office and in the laboratory. From 1934 to 1939 Erwin Sick held various positions at Siemens , Bosch and Askania , initially as a designer and later as an engineer. There he was involved in development projects for color film , cinema technology , astronomical and physical devices.

In 1939 he took over the management of the laboratory of Optical Works CA Steinheil & Sons , Munich . In December 1944 he married Gisela Neumann. In 1945 he gave up his position at CA Steinheil & Sons and dared to take the plunge into self-employment. Because he was politically unaffected, Erwin Sick received approval from the American military government on September 26, 1946 to “practice his profession as an engineer.” That was the hour of birth of the later Sick AG .

At the "German Inventors and Novelties Fair" held in Munich in June 1951, Sick presented the first model of its light curtain made of wood and received a diploma "for special creative achievement". The patent application made on October 20 for the light curtain invented by Erwin Sick based on the autocollimation principle marked the technical breakthrough and the basis for an entire range of devices.

Erwin Sick died on December 3, 1988 at the age of 79 as a result of a heart attack. From then on, his wife Gisela Sick took over the management of the company as the main shareholder. In 1996, Erwin Sick GmbH became the joint stock company Sick AG .

honors and awards

• In 1971 Erwin Sick received the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class, at the company's 25th anniversary .
• In 1980 the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Munich awarded Erwin Sick the honorary doctoral engineer in recognition of his contribution "to the scientific and structural development of optical devices with electronic signal evaluation".
• In 1982 he received the Diesel Medal in gold “for his various inventions in opto-electronics” .

literature

• Anita Kuisle :  Sick, Erwin Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 308 f. ( Digitized version ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biography Erwin Sick company founder of SICK AG ( Memento of the original from October 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ ^{a b} Prof. Dr. Armin Herrmann: Erwin Sick: The inventor and his company. 2nd Edition. 2016.